We have one commandment and one commission, and the great commission is our Christian job description. Scripturally, we should have multiple types of outreach, but only one message. Timothy became all things to all people so that the Jews would receive him to hear the ONE message. The message is not supposed to become all things to all people. (Acts 16:1-5) In Matthew 28 we hear Jesus command the apostles to teach all believers to make disciples! In Acts 4:13, we see that the religious authorities were stunned at how bold Peter and John (uneducated men) were in preaching the gospel and they found out that they had been with Jesus. There is a very powerful truth there: you do not need to have a theology Ph. D. in order to disciple someone. You just need to be with Jesus!
Hebrews 5:12-14 shows us that everybody in the body of Christ should be able to teach. Everyone ought to be able to teach in the body of Christ, but there is a five-fold teacher. Everybody ought to be able to perform signs and wonders in the body of Christ, but there are apostles. Everybody ought to be able to witness, but there are evangelists. Everyone in the body of Christ ought to be able to prophecy (earnestly desire spiritual gifts - especially that you may prophecy) but there are prophets. Everyone ought to be able to pastor and disciple but there are pastors. The five-fold minsters are to be equipping the saints for the works of service!
1 Corinthians 15:34 says “awake to righteousness and sin not.” We are not going to be a “flesh clean-up event discipleship” church. We are going to be spirit-based discipleship church. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us to regard each other no longer according to the flesh.
We have real, powerful truth in demonstration and in word to actually be able to give real, tangible solutions to people in need. I want us to have this mindset: you have what the world is looking for! We have individually experienced freedom, healing, wisdom, purpose, love, joy, and peace from God! If you ask God for someone to disciple, He’s going to give you someone!
Where do you start anything that you want to accomplish in your life? In the Word! In John 15:5, Jesus says “without Me (the Word) you can do nothing.” When you are going to minister, you need to be in the Word more. The whole body of Christ is to be equipped for the works of service and we need to stay out of spiritual debt by preemptively building up a spiritual trust fund.
Exodus 16 teaches us a a powerful truth about grace for your time in the Word. Do not beat yourself up with some sort of huge hours requirement for your time in the Word if you don’t have a grace for that yet. Simply do something! Every man gathered Manna according to his need and none lacked! Here’s what will happen: if you even set 15 minutes as your goal in the Word each day, your hunger will increase and all of a sudden you will be spending 30 minutes in the Word. All of a sudden you are going to be spending 45 minutes in the Word and then an hour because it is so powerful that your business only takes half as much time as it used to take because you have the wisdom of God flowing! So, what you want to do is gather something! But, when you are going to start discipling people, realize that there are more people in your tent. If you were gathering one omer before and it was enough and you had no lack, when you start discipling people you may need two omers worth.
Finally, let’s look at 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Notice that it is instruction in righteousness not instruction in sinfulness! People need instructed in righteousness! They need to know who they are in Christ. Righteousness-conciousness!
Know this: Satan is going to oppose you getting in the Word. He is more opposed to you getting in the Word than just about anything else. So, be wise to that and know that Satan is going to use emotions and circumstances to mess you up in the Word! So do you know what you can do? Make a plan. With a plan, you have already pre-decided that emotions and circumstances are not going to mess you up in your time in the Word. God bless you!